Bring Home the Bacon Tomato Salad

Many might argue the best tomato salad includes nothing but tomato and a little salt, but we think otherwise. The bright, bold flavors of garden-ripe summertime tomatoes can match all manner of ingredients to make for great salads. We did find there are a few rules of thumb to follow when pairing tomatoes with different dressings and ingredients. Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• Take the sweetness and acidity of the tomato into consideration when searching for a dressing. Very sweet tomatoes are best paired with sharp vinaigrettes; tart tomatoes can be tempered by sweet, rich dressings.
• Acidic tomatoes nicely complement rich ingredients like bacon or avocado. Sweet tomatoes tone down the sharpness of onions or peppery greens.
• Yellow and orange tomatoes are typically the sweetest tomatoes. Green tomatoes--not to be confused with unripe tomatoes--are usually the most acidic.
• To hasten ripening, store tomatoes in a sealed paper bag.
• Never refrigerate a tomato because the cold destroys valuable flavor components.